Single center validation of mortality scores in patients with acute decompensation of cirrhosis with and without acute-on-chronic liver failure

Objectives: Acute decompensation (AD) of cirrhosis is characterized by high mortality. We aimed to validate the performance in predicting mortality of both the chronic-liver-failure-consortium (CLIF-C) acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) and CLIF-C AD scores in a cohort of patients admitted for AD.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study, patients were followed-up during their hospital stay and for 365 days thereafter.

Results: About 182 patients with AD were enrolled including 78 (42.8%) who met the criteria for ACLF (ACLF-group) while the remaining had AD without ACLF (AD-group). 56.4% and 56.7% of the ACLF- and AD-groups, respectively, had alcoholic cirrhosis and 85.9% of the ACLF-group hepatic encephalopathy. Only few patients were hospitalized in the intensive care unit (ICU) or transplanted. The probabilities of death estimated for both scores were similar to the overall mortality rates observed at all time points. The model had a good fit in the AD-group at 90 days (p = .974) but a worse, yet adequate, in the ACLF-group at 28 days (p = .08). The CLIF-C ACLF or AD scores had an adequate, predictive discrimination ability for mortality at all time points, with Harrel’s concordance index-C ranging between 0.64 and 0.65 or 0.64 and 0.68, respectively. Both scores showed a similar predictive accuracy for mortality compared to those of MELD, MELD-Na and Child-Pugh.

Conclusions: In this population without access to appropriate ICU treatment, the CLIF-C ACLF and AD performed worse than in studies with patients having ICU access. In addition, the CLIF scores were not superior to classical ones in this setting.